Motivating Salespeople to Contribute to Marketing Intelligence Activities: An Expectancy Theory Approach

Abstract

This study was to investigate the motivational factors that may contribute to explain salespeople's motivation toward marketing intelligence activities. The proposed conceptual model utilizes expectancy theory, a process theory of motivation. Three factors can motivate salesperson to exert effort to collect and transmit information from the field expectancy, instrumentality and valence. The proposed conceptual model provides a manager a better understanding that salespeople will motivated and given amount effort to contribute marketing intelligence activities if he or she will gather good information about competitors or about customers and receive a reward for the information transmitted, which he or she really want to obtain.

Relationships among perceptions of organizational politics (POPs), work motivation and salesperson performance

“…The expectancy theory has been used to predict motivational consequences on pay changes, promotions, changes in working conditions and assignments, use of overtime, training and recognition of achievements (Warren, 1989; Nasri & Charfeddine, 2012). It has also been used to comprehend sales force (e.g., Oliver, 1974; Walker, Churchill, & Ford, 1977; Teas, 1981; Tyagi, 1982; Teas & McElroy, 1986; Johnston & Kim, 1994; Geiger & Cooper, 1996; Nasri & Charfeddine, 2012) assuming that salespersons have expectancy about what they should receive from the organization as a result of their effort. Outcome-based systems, which rely on a higher proportion of variable pay, assume high levels of salesperson autonomy (Oliver & Anderson, 1994, 1995; Kunz & Pfaff, 2002).…”

“…Second, the performance of office workers is rewarded by a regular salary rated in a compensation structure containing less incentive (Pearce, 2010). Namely, the correlation between performance and rewards is insignificant to the office workers (Varghese, 2011; Nasri & Charfeddine, 2012), but the question now arises if we turn office workers to salespersons. As mentioned, the tasks for salespersons are mainly visiting customers and winning orders and they have significantly higher work pressure than office workers because they must deal with large percentages of ‘no sales’ (Low et al, 2001).…”

“…In organizational literature, many researchers have focused on different organizational members such as office workers, public servants, teachers and stated-owned business workers and reached rather consistent conclusions that POPs and job performance are negatively correlated (e.g., Ferris, Russ, & Fandt, 1989; Kacmar, Bozeman, Carlson, & Anthony, 1999; Vigoda, 2000; Poon & Bangi, 2003; Zivnuska, Kacmar, & Witt, 2004; Harris & Kacmar, 2005; Rosen, Levy & Hall, 2006; Chen & Fang, 2008; Marschke, Preziosi, & Harrington, 2010; Cohen & Liu, 2011; Varghese, 2011; Nasri & Charfeddine, 2012; Pal & Dasgupta, 2012). Some researchers have examined POPs in relation to job outcome-related variables (Hochwarter, Kacmar, Perrewé, & Johnson, 2003; Vigoda-Gadot & Talmud, 2010); while others have focused on the negative effect of organizational politics on job satisfaction (Zhou & Ferris, 1995; Ferris, Frink, Galang, Zhou, Kacmar, & Howard, 1996), organizational commitment (Randall, Cropanzano, Borman, & Birjulin, 1999; Vigoda, 2000; Yahcouchi, 2009; Anari, 2012), job stress, strain and burnout (Kacmar et al, 1999; Valle & Perrewé, 2000).…”

“…Salespersons tend to protect or even extend their own interests in conformation with the organizational politics when accomplishing the missions assigned by the sales managers or organizations under the circumstances of resource scarcity, economic instability and increasing competition (Chen & Fang, 2008; Marschke, Preziosi, & Harrington, 2010; Varghese, 2011; Nasri & Charfeddine, 2012). The tasks for salespersons are primarily visiting customers and winning orders and they usually operate their work in the places remote from their home bases (Vinchur, Schippmann, Switzer, & Roth, 1998), hence salespersons have less close administration than office workers by their supervisors.…”

“…Of these theories, the expectancy theory, coined by Vroom (1964), has been satisfactorily used to explain the behavioral process of why individuals choose one behavioral option over another and how they make decisions to achieve the end they value. The expectancy theory of motivation offers compatible frameworks for understanding work motivation, thus it becomes one of the most common theories of motivation in workplaces (Heneman & Schwab, 1972; Tien, 2000; Vansteenkiste, Lens, de Witte, & Feather, 2005; Nasri & Charfeddine, 2012). Further, the expectancy theory of motivation serves as a practical and powerful tool for creating a motivating environment, thus it is recognized as one of the most promising conceptualizations of individual motivation (Ferris, 1977; Nasri & Charfeddine, 2012).…”